this is indeed probably the best low-cost wifi chip out there, most of the esp8266 modules are still acting as an add-on module for other host-cpus(e.g. arduino) though, wish it can run something like freertos or contik on its own so it can be a IoT sensor standalone(maybe it's there already, had not checked it in the last few months).

TI had similar products but it's too expensive, in that sense IoT hardware has to be 'made-in-china'

I have been messing with nodemcu on an ESP8266 ebay board for the last few weeks. It was initially really weird to have a REPL on an embedded system but I'm already missing it when I go back to other platforms.

I bought one as well although I didn't do anything yet, would you mind share what you did/recommend doing? I was thinking to make a temperature sensor monitoring device, as I have an arduino that is doing the job now

Hey @jerrysievert, this is Omer from Cesanta. Great to hear that Smart.js worked for you. Would you mind sharing a bit more on your project? I can be reached at omer at cesanta.com Thanks and best of luck!

no link, the place i bought mine from in august doesn't appear to have any anymore.

i recommend buying the esp-12e, and the first one on my search comes up at $1.97. note, these things aren't breadboard friendly out of the box. if you want that, buy a huzzah from adafruit or buy one of the breakout boards on aliexpress (17 cents each or so).

For the 12E to start with, take a look at the nodemcu dev boards. More expensive but it's a great little board to start a project on and then go to the bare module since it includes all the usb<->ttl, and regulator stuff.

For someone wanting to tinker but not being great at electronics project, what is the easiest way to:
- Play with the chip (testing interfaces, deploying code etc)
- "Deploy" it (ie. connect it to ground power, via 230v-USB connector or similar?

We've been running a series of experiments to try to mitigate the
randomness of what achieves liftoff from /newest. We started working
on this because many users complained that good stories were getting
ignored, and we looked closely and found that this was true. Below are links to a few comments I've posted about this over
the last year, if anyone's interested. The next experiment
will probably be to add a profile setting that people can turn on to let the
software repost their story at a good time, rather than having to get
an email invitation—although to judge from the feedback we've been getting, people seem to like the emails.